Beautiful Japanese Actress / Model Yoshika Kato

Yoshika Kato is a Japanese model and actress. This Japanese beauty was born on 12 February 1985 in Tokyo, Japan.

Yoshika has been modeling for several years and recently went into acting. To date, she has two movies to her name.

Blogger's new bag of tricks

Posted by Lexi Baugher, Software Engineer

Blogger has always been the easiest-to-use blogging software around, but it just got way more powerful. We've added a bunch of new features, which you can check out in the new version:

• You can add stuff to your blog (cute cat photos, lists, feeds) without needing to know HTML.
• You can also make a completely unique template that has just the color scheme you want, without knowing any CSS.
  
• Don't want your mom to read your thoughts? Make a private blog.
• Label your posts, to group related ones together.
• Use one of our new templates.
• You can now sign in to Blogger using your Google Account.

Naturally, this is still a work in progress, and more exciting features are in the pipeline. Try it out and send your feedback!

Happy Holidays with Google Desktop 4.5

Posted by Mendel Chuang, Product Marketing Manager

Since the debut of the new transparent Sidebar in Google Desktop 4.5, we've been working to make it widely available outside of the English-speaking world. We're finally done, and now you can get it in any of 28 languages. And just in time for the holidays, we've added several holiday themed gadgets. More details are available on the Google Desktop Blog.

AV star Tia Tanaka

Tia Tanaka was born in 1987 in the Philippines. This 5' 2" part French and part Vietnamese beauty is an AV actress/ model. Tia currently lives in Los Angeles, California and has done over 47 films. Yowza!

Accessible Search: Answers to common questions

Posted by T.V. Raman, Research Scientist

From time to time, our own T.V. Raman shares his tips on how to use Google from his perspective as a technologist who cannot see -- tips that sighted people, among others, may also find useful. - Ed.

Since we launched Google Accessible Search in July, we have received lots of feedback along with many questions. I'll briefly summarize these with answers.

Q: Does Accessible Search filter out inaccessible content?
A: No. First of all, "accessible" is a very subjective measure; what's more, queries can vary widely with respect to how accessible the results are. As an example, if you are looking for information such as weather forecasts or reference material, like the definition of an unfamiliar term, the set will often consists of both accessible and inaccessible content. In these cases, Google Accessible Search promotes those results that have been measured to be more accessible. On the other hand, if the particular query is about videogames, the chances are fairly high that a majority of the best results for that query will be visually busy pages. So in the final analysis, we do not filter content in Google Accessible Search; we pick the best results exactly as we do with regular Google search, and then re-order the top results by their level of accessibility.

Q: The result set looks identical to regular search. Is this intentional?
A: The operational word in the above question is looks. Google Accessible Search does not in any way change the look and feel of Google search results. What it does is re-order results based on how accessible they are.

Q: How has Google enhanced navigating its search results?
A: Since Google Accessible Search launched, many people have sent feedback about the results page (both Google Accessible and regular search) being difficult to navigate with screenreaders. In response, we have updated the results pages in both cases to have section headers that can be used in conjunction with screenreader hotkeys to quickly skim through the page. Thus, once Google has responded to your search query, use your access technology's "move by section" keys to move between the section that displays sponsored ads and the individual results.

Q: How can I perform more complex searches?
A: Notice that http://labs.google.com/accessible has a link to Advanced Search in addition to the simple text box. Use this link to focus your search on documents in a specific language. The resulting search will continue to use Google Accessible Search for ordering the results.

Q: How can I compare regular search with Google Accessible?
A: Google Accessible Search is an experiment, and to be an effective experiment, people need to be able to easily compare the results obtained by using regular Google search versus Google Accessible. Notice that the top of the results page contains a pair of radio buttons labeled "Web Search" and "Accessible Search." You can easily repeat your search by pressing the appropriate radio button and clicking on the "submit" button.

Q: How can I make my site rank higher in Accessible Search?
A: Use our Webmaster Guidelines as a starting point. Once you've fully addressed these, I'd suggest reviewing your content to see how well it degrades gracefully. In addition to viewing the page in text-only mode (as the Guidelines suggest), also try the following additional checks:
- browse your site on a monochrome display;
- use your site without a mouse.

Update: Corrected to note that we *do not* filter Accessible Search content.

Mapping Europe

Posted by John Hanke, Director, Google Earth & Maps

As part of our ongoing effort to connect people to information about the world -- or perhaps le monde, die welt, el mundo -- around them, I'm pleased to tell you about the addition of a new team to Google. Today we acquired Endoxon, an Internet mapping solutions company based in Lucerne, Switzerland.

The Endoxon team has demonstrated passion and innovation in online mapping and has developed compelling technology that will enhance our Google geo products worldwide. We're also excited about having a dedicated team in Europe that can bring a distinctively European focus to our Maps products in those markets.

Stunning MTV VJ Vanessa Minnillo

Vanessa Minnillo was born on 9 November 1980 in the Clark Air Base, Philippines. This 5' 8" beauty is of Italian, Irish and Filipina descent.

Minnillo is a VJ on MTV's Total Request Live and was Miss Teen USA 1998. Besides English, she has passive knowledge of two Philippine languages.

Recently, Maxim magazine listed Minnillo as #15 in their Hot 100 issue. She was listed as #62 in the 2005 issue and was the Maxim cover girl for the second time for both the October 2005 and October 2006 issues.

We can see why... :)